It turns out that the departure of Brock Osweiler caught John Elway off guard, too.
The Broncos’ VP and general manager told Bleacher Report’s Jason Cole that Denver anticipated retaining Osweiler even if Peyton Manning retired.
“Was it a big surprise that we were in that situation? Yeah,” Elway said of losing Manning and Osweiler in the same offseason. “Because I thought…we drafted Brock when we got Peyton because we didn’t know exactly what Peyton was going to be. But also, if [Manning] wasn’t in good shape, we were going to a guy who was going to be here for a long, long time. Now, that didn’t work out, so it was a matter of, you have to fix the issue.”
Elway outlined the team’s response to the challenge, reaffirming his faith in Mark Sanchez in the process.
“Well, the first thing we did is we got Mark and I feel good about Mark,” Elway said. “So by getting Mark—and we’re a lot higher on him than a lot of people are—so once we landed Mark and he was here, we felt better about the situation. It was a matter of bringing somebody in for competition. But of the guys who were out there at the time, there were no difference-makers. So why would I overpay for a guy who wasn’t going to be a difference-maker?”
That last sentence seems to be why Colin Kaepernick never became a Bronco. The team clearly liked him, but not at the price it would have taken. Instead they grabbed the ever-confident Sanchez as well as Paxton Lynch, who they are quite high on for the future.
